Nine Gates (24 page)

“I see,” Nissa said. “Adding a fourth tile to a sequence of three only raises the percentage of ‘ones’ by thirty-three percent. When we get to the middle sequences, although we will only be adding one ‘tile,’ it will actually be a fifty-percent increase in the force of that number. When we reach the Ninth Gate, we will face the same diminution of force again. That’s really interesting.”

“But dangerous,” Des said. “Theory aside, that danger is what we must remember. None of the Nine Gates will be precisely simple to establish, but the first and ninth contain that additional fillip of risk. That means that we’re going to all need to obey Flying Claw without question when he negotiates with the White Tiger of the West.”

Honey Dream found herself fascinated by this first close look at the Orphans’ peculiar way of focusing magic. It was both brilliant and yet oddly childish, simple yet fraught with hidden complexities. Her respect for the Twelve Exiles who became the Thirteen Orphans rose once again.

“We must remember,” Honey Dream said, hearing her own eagerness, “that the numbers you are referring to as ‘one,’‘two,’ ‘three,’ and so on actually must be perceived as multiplied by ten thousand. In the Lands, at least, there is a
tale that the character for ‘ten thousand’ is a representative of a scorpion, because these creatures are rarely found alone.”

“Another theory,” Flying Claw said so mildly he did not seem to be contradicting, “is that the character has its source in a depiction of a field full of grass. That is the image I wish to invoke for this first gate, since tigers are very at home in tall grass and I wish the White Tiger to feel welcomed—and that we are not in the least afraid of it.”

Des nodded, but he flashed a smile at Honey Dream. “However, I think we will invoke your scorpions when we first contact Hell and seek to link to the Nine Yellow Springs. I think we’ll welcome the scorpion’s protection then.”

Brenda Morris was looking confused again, but, although Des looked over at her as if inviting questions, Brenda kept her silence. Her right hand drifted down to where the polished black stone frog hung against her thigh as if seeking reassurance.

Honey Dream hardly blamed her. This was too complex for an ignorant novice.

“We’re ready, then,” Des said. “It would be best if each of us took a part in the opening. Brenda, you do one and two.”

Brenda touched the little frog again, but stepped forward boldly enough. Des handed her a stylus shaped like a pen, but where the nib for the ink would be, the stylus was tipped with hard, sharp steel.

“Cut the numbers into the door alongside the left panel,” he instructed. “Relax and concentrate.”

Brenda tested out the tip of the stylus against the surface of a pine packing crate, its broken side testifying why the prior tenants had left it behind.

“Cuts well,” she murmured. “Right. I can do this. Start with four ones, then one two.”

She moved to the door and rested her arm against it, striving for the correct angle.

“Is it okay if I touch the picture of the Men Shen?” she asked.

“Fine,” Des said. “Start as high up as you can comfortably reach. Now concentrate. Everybody, stop staring at her. You’ll have your turn soon enough.”

Honey Dream turned away from the temptation to stare, knowing without a doubt that she could make Brenda feel her skin creep where Honey Dream’s gaze rested. But what would be the point? Honey Dream wanted these gates opened, wanted the opportunity to return home, to take revenge on those who had overthrown their emperor, claimed the Jade Petal Throne for themselves. If she had to accept Brenda Morris’s help to do so, well then, she would.

However, she would not accept Brenda Morris.

Flying Claw had gone off into a corner by himself. He had drawn his sword and held it point-down against the floor. As Honey Dream watched, he knelt in one graceful fluid motion and pressed his forehead lightly against the hilt, focusing his ch’i.

Seeing his intensity, Honey Dream was momentarily ashamed of her childish impulse to sabotage Brenda Morris’s efforts. Then she regained her composure, and looked over toward where Desperate Lee, formal and flamboyant as a Rooster should be, stood in his robes of heavily embroidered silver, watching as Brenda carefully completed the third of her four ones.

“Who will be next?” Honey Dream asked Des, moving to where she could speak in the softest possible voice.

“Nissa for three and four,” Des said equally softly. “Riprap for five and six. I’ll do seven. I want you to do eight, and Flying Claw to conclude with nine. In this way, we who belong to this side of the gate will begin, and you who will be crossing a little closer to your home will end it.”

Honey Dream nodded acceptance and made a slight, formal bow that acknowledged the elegance of the plan. Doubtless Des had arrived at this arrangement after consultation with Shen and Righteous Drum, but he spoke as if the plan
was his own. He was very much a Rooster, for they were among the most solitary of signs and yet could be good leaders, even as a rooster was the sole male of his flock, and yet commanded the hens.

By the time Brenda finished her two sets of characters, her forehead was lightly beaded with sweat. Prompted by Des, Nissa stepped forward and accepted the stylus, pausing only long enough to give Brenda an approving squeeze on the shoulder before moving to take her place.

Brenda gave a wan smile, then moved to seat herself on the edge of a short stack of shipping pallets that stood off to one side. She took a water bottle from her pack and drank deeply.

Honey Dream glanced over to where Nissa was now scribing in three and four, her hand on the stylus firm and confident. Perhaps she should have trained as a surgeon rather than a pharmacy assistant.

Taking a deep, full breath and calling on the Snake who coiled against and within her, Honey Dream asked her eyes to see the ch’i present in the room. Pale light immediately glowed blackly from where Brenda had cut her characters. Below it, Nissa’s characters were shaded with the green of fresh grass. In the corner where he still meditated, Flying Claw was surrounded by an aura the darker green of jungle foliage.

Honey Dream let the sight lapse. It was easy enough to summon, and she had no wish to have her small magic disturb the current building around the doorway.

Confident that Des had matters well in hand, she composed herself into a light meditation that would enable her to focus her ch’i while leaving sufficient awareness so that she would know when her turn to inscribe the doorway had come.

When Des finished, Honey Dream was ready, her ch’i so finely focused that she knew she glided across the floor as if her feet were a fraction of a finger’s width above the concrete floor. The metal stylus was warm in her hand, and seemed to
glow faintly with the colors of those who had used it before her.

She settled herself in to draw the shapes of the number eight, two simple lines that nonetheless had a sense of motion to them. As she drew the character for “wan” or “ten thousand,” she concentrated on evoking the deep grass of a never-mown field. The inscription took very little time, and so little effort that she was tempted to continue and draw in the “nine” as well, but Flying Claw was waiting close at hand.

She could smell him, clean and fresh, yet somehow rank with the odor of a tiger, and knew this was not the time to cross him.

Flying Claw took the stylus from her hand and padded forward. He had to bend slightly to fill in the bottom of the panel, but his hand moved surely. As he set the last of the three nines in place, a sharp cracking sound echoed through the confines of the warehouse, the door swung open, and through it they saw not the other side of the warehouse, but a field filled with waist-high, lush green grass. In the distance, beyond the field, could be seen the edges of a jungle, a wall of living vegetation splashed with flowers in such brilliant hues that they startled the eye.

But before the last echo from the door’s opening had faded, the view beyond was blocked by two towering figures in warlike armor and bearing weapons that, for all the gems that bedecked their hilts and hafts, looked very sharp and completely deadly.

Without a pause, Flying Claw stepped forward and bowed. The motion was full of respect, but without the least hint of groveling. It was a greeting between warrior and warrior, minister and minister, not youth and figure out of legend.

Honey Dream felt her heart tighten with pride and delight, an emotion that in no way diminished when Flying Claw addressed Yu Che and Ch’in Shu-pao.

“Greetings, legend-sung guardians of a thousand doors, a hundred thousand gateways. I have come to speak to my
father-self, brother and uncle, the White Tiger of the West. I am in no way in disfavor with him. Will you grant me passage into his lands?”

Yu Che turned ponderously, hand resting on the haft of the whip which he used to scourge demons, and faced Ch’in Shu-pao.

“Do you see your way to granting this petition, minister who is faithful through the night?”

“I might,” replied Ch’in Shu-pao, “but a guard is always wisest when he asks leave of the master of the house. I will watch the door if you will bear this message to Pai Hu, the White Tiger of the West.”

He unslung a mighty battle-axe, and swung it down so that it barred the open door. The sharpened edge of the blade cut the air with a hiss, but Flying Claw did not step back.

“I admire your axe,” he said, courtly yet conversational, “but I assure you, it is not necessary. I will not force entry, for I feel sure of my welcome here.”

“Sure?? Sure??” came a roaring, growling sound, terrible and yet with every word perfectly clear.

The air shimmered around where the incised door stood, then both doorway and Men Shen vanished. In their place was the head of an enormous tiger, fully as high and then twice as wide again as the doorway it had replaced.

The tiger’s fur was white, its stripes black, its eyes the hot golden brown of a burning coal. Its fangs were like sharp-tipped spears of bone, and its breath as hot as the wind that comes forth from a furnace.

Honey Dream stepped back despite her best intentions, then tried to cover her moment of panic by acting as if she had been trying catch a glimpse of the rest of the white tiger’s body, but although she had the sense that it was there, monstrously huge, crouched as if to spring, she could see nothing but that enormous head.

The burning eyes focused on Flying Claw, but the young warrior stood tall, head thrown back, a faint smile on his
well-shaped mouth. He did not touch even the hilt of his sword, but held his hands in a relaxed posture at his sides.

“I know you,” said Pai Hu, the White Tiger, and his words made Honey Dream’s eardrums ache from the vibration of his growls. “And yet… Were you not a woman the last time I saw you?”

“You are remembering my aunt,” Flying Claw said conversationally, ignoring what must have been a deliberate insult with incredible poise. “She who is called Pearl Bright. She sends her greetings, and asks if you enjoyed your game with the Three-Legged Toad.”

There was a moment of silence, then the great Tiger huffed and sneezed in what Honey Dream realized must be laughter—but laughter whose gusts could sink ships and level forests.

“It was a good game,” the White Tiger admitted when its laughter had stilled. “I enjoyed it. For having only three legs, the Toad hops very quickly. Where is Pearl Bright? Why does she send a little he-cub to bring her messages?”

Again Flying Claw ignored the insult, although this one was more pointed than the last. His hand did not even stray an inch toward the hilt of his sword.

“My aunt will be coming to visit you in a short while,” he said, “that is, if you will grant us access to your realm of the West.”

“And why should I do this?”

“Perhaps for family feeling, perhaps for the amusement that will come,” replied Flying Claw.

“Is that all? Can you not do a favor or so for me?”

“If such is within my power, and if such is not in violation of oaths I have already sworn.”

“Wisdom and prudence both,” the White Tiger rumbled, and Honey Dream was almost certain Pai Hu was pleased. “But you may need more. You may need courage as well. Tell me, do you seek passage only for yourself, or for that mob I see behind you?”

“For these and for others,” Flying Claw said. “In the end, we may be as many as thirteen plus five.”

“Thirteen,” rumbled the White Tiger. “I remember a certain Thirteen quite well… Yes. That could indeed be amusing. Still, amusement is not enough. If you wish to pass through my lands, to anchor your gates through my realm, then you must do me a favor. If you should do that, I will grant you passage from your world into the West, passage for yourself and your entire thirteen plus five—but I do not promise you any help beyond that. These are unsettled times, even for the White Tiger of the West.”

Flying Claw straightened and looked pleased, as well he should, but a touch apprehensive as well—as indeed he should. The type of favor the White Tiger of the West would want granted would not be a light one.

“By the terms already mentioned,” Flying Claw said, “and within the restrictions already placed upon me, I will do this favor for you.”

“And we,” said Des, speaking for the first time, his gaze warning the others to keep silent lest a chance word get them into more than they desired, “will help him to the extent of our abilities and our honor.”

“You will, will you, cockerel?” The White Tiger laughed again and stretched his jaws. “You will need more than pretty words if you are to satisfy me.”

The jaws stretched yet more, becoming all of heaven and the edge of Earth, but the fangs looked no less sharp for their great size.

“Come. Show your courage, all of you,” the White Tiger rumbled. “Come and walk between my jaws.”

Albert Yu’s
cell phone rang while they were discussing what alternatives remained open to them. Albert answered the chime (it sounded rather like temple bells) and listened intently. They all did, for Albert made no attempt to hide his side of the conversation.